It is known that carboxylic acid alkyl esters find numerous applications in solvent and polymer plasticizer fields. It is also known that it is possible to obtain fatty alcohols of great purity by saponification of such carboxylic alkyl esters. So it is very desirable to have a process for obtaining such esters in a very high yield, and this is especially so with esters, the alkyl chain of which is linear, because in this way one can obtain valuable linear fatty alcohols in high yields.
The reaction of an halo-alkane with an alkali metal salt of carboxylic acid, catalyzed by a light tertiary amine, such as triethylamine, has been described in French Pat. No. 1,357,888. But in this case the reaction medium constitutes an organic liquid phase, i.e. the halo-alkane, and a finely dispersed solid phase, i.e. the carboxylic acid alkali metal salt. However, this is an undesirable reaction medium because the alkali metal salt must be in the solid phase and not in the form of the much more convenient aqueous solution. Indeed, since the salt is most often obtained by salification in an aqueous medium of the corresponding acid by means of an alkaline base, the required use of the solid phase in the process of French Pat. No. 1,357,888 requires that the crude aqueous solution be subjected to expensive isolation operations such as solvent evaporation or atomization. Moreover, handling of the solid is much more difficult than handling the liquid, especially when operating continuously because the problems of material transport and stirring of liquids are greatly simplified compared to that of solids.